[AI Revolution](207) Control M: "Solving the Structural Issues of the Restaurant Industry with AI"

Restaurant Management Platform ‘Restogeni’
Focused on Solving Store-Level Challenges
"Aiming to Reduce Business Closure Rates for Small Owners"

In the restaurant industry, business owners are often single-handedly responsible for every aspect of store management. There is a mountain of work to tackle, ranging from sales to inventory, personnel, advertising, and customer management. It is not easy to focus on the core elements of taste and service. As a result, while owners become overwhelmed with work, customer numbers tend to decline. Control M is a startup founded in 2022 to solve such structural issues in the restaurant industry. After much trial and error, the solution it presented is ‘Restogeni,’ an integrated AI-based restaurant management platform.

On July 19, Won Jongkwan, CEO of Control M, said, “As a partner for the AI transformation (AX) in the restaurant industry, our role does not end with delivering the solution—our goal is to assist in both decision-making and execution.” Restogeni is an AI management platform exclusively for food service operators that consolidates store operation data including POS, advertising, settlement, personnel, and manuals into a single solution. It supports the entire process of restaurant operations with conversational AI. For example, when the owner asks, “How were yesterday’s sales?” the AI responds, and every morning, it provides a briefing summarizing the previous day’s sales and any issues.

Won Jonggwan, CEO of Control M, is explaining 'Restogini,' an AI operation platform exclusively for food service operators. Control M

CEO Won and Control M’s core guiding principle has been to provide unwavering support for restaurant owners and their management environment above all else. The focus was not simply on offering a convenient AI, but on solving actual problems faced by restaurant operators. CEO Won explained, “At a restaurant in Gangnam, the menu and marketing were originally targeted at people in their teens and twenties based on intuition, but after introducing Restogeni and analyzing the data, they found most customers were men in their thirties.” He continued, “Based on the data, the AI provided solutions to change the target and improve delivery efficiency, resulting in an actual sales increase of more than 30%.”

This commitment is shaped by CEO Won’s own experience. As the former executive director of E-Land’s e-commerce division, he spent many years in the distribution industry—mostly leading digital transformation initiatives. With a broad interest in retail, he personally operated about 30 brand stores, including coffee and hamburger shops. Through these experiences, he identified the challenge that restaurant sites were not yet digitalized and resolved to use AI to lower the high closure rates among small business owners and create a sustainable profit structure.

CEO Won has incorporated only the results that were practically tested at actual restaurants into Restogeni. To do so, Control M operates its own branded store, ‘SLAM BURGER,’ in Daehak-ro, Seoul as a test bed. He explained, “At the SLAM BURGER store, we create workforce operation plans with Restogeni and measure customer conversion rates for both delivery and dine-in services to provide feedback. Additionally, we use AI vision cameras to analyze foot traffic and visitor data, which has enabled us to develop new menu items.”

The primary target for Restogeni is franchise brands. The aim is to learn from multiple use cases in the B2B (business-to-business) market and then expand to B2C (business-to-consumer) targeting individual small business owners. Results are already materializing. As collaborations with major franchise brands continue, the number of stores using Restogeni has surpassed 1,000. Growth has been so rapid that last month’s cumulative sales already surpassed last year’s entire total. The company also has its sights set on the global market. CEO Won stated, “Business closures in the restaurant industry are a worldwide issue,” and added, “As we achieve more results in collaboration with domestic franchises, we will gradually consider further expansion into global markets.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.